I did the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Denver this weekend. I walked 26.2 miles on Saturday, and I have to tell you, it was a killer. I walked in memory of my late grandmother, who died nine years ago after a long fight with breast cancer. Truthfully, though, I also walked to test myself. I needed to know that I could walk that far. I needed to prove to everyone else that I was healthy, strong, and capable. While people have been very sweet about asking about my health since my run-in with a possible MS diagnosis, I've also felt put out at times that people make assumptions about what I can't do. So I walked. And walked. And imagined that my grandmother was at the end to greet me, or that I would meet my new daughter from China. In the end, only a giant thunderstorm with golfball-sized hail was at the end to greet me, along with a lot of blisters and really sore ankles and legs. The thunderstorm soaked through our tent and saturated our sleeping bags and walking shoes, so I decided that motivated was one thing - and flat-out crazy was another. I called my husband and went home, feeling pretty beat up. I'm still recovering from the walk. My ankles are NOT happy. I really needed to train more before trying to do this. Part of me wishes I could have stayed and walked the additional 13 miles on Sunday. My legs say otherwise, and I know that I did the hard part, the important part, the part I was worried I couldn't do. So yes, I feel like I missed out in some ways, but ultimately, I gained a lot more than I lost.

The good news is that we Denver walkers raised over 2 million dollars for breast cancer treatment and research. And it was an incredible experience - so many people there just to make me feel good. From people cheering from the sides of the streets, to folks making sure we crossed streets safely, to strangers being so willing to fill a water bottle or hold my hand to pull me along to that next mile marker.

It gave me some new faith in humanity. And some new faith in myself. I cried when I finally made it to the end of the marathon on Saturday. I had never walked so far, felt so much pain, nor felt so good at the same time.

I still hope that my little girl is at the end of some long road out there.

Okay - I'm walking over 39 miles this weekend for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Yay for me. So why the heck am I awake at almost 1 a.m.? Because little Chinese daughters dance around in my head, making it very difficult for me to relax. I look at all the waiting child lists. I surf blogs. I surf Yahoo Groups. I write my own blogs. I read yet another book about China adoption. I will have over 39 miles worth of walking time to further drive myself nuts over Chinese adoption. Meditation. We'll call it meditation. (That makes it sound like time well spent...) They don't let us listen to music or talk on cell phones while we're out there. All the better to focus on my discontent.

Apparently my toddler takes after me when it comes to obsession. We've watched "Big Bird in China" yet again today. She watched it four times in a row a couple of days ago. (That makes me Mom of the Year, eh? Way to encourage time away from the TV for those young developing minds! Good grief.) So I have a three year old following me around saying "Mommy! Monkey King! Monkey King!!!" Alrighty then. That should get me some interesting looks from strangers at the grocery store. (Picture young blond child throwing her curls back in a hearty wail, "Monkey KIIIIINNNGG!!!")

I should be getting ready for this walk, I should be cleaning house for the appraiser that's coming because of our mortgage refinance, I should be looking up articles about hearing status and rehabilitation in Alzheimer's patients (for my university advisor). I should be completing the landscape project that I thought I'd have done by now. And I should be playing with my kids more - after all, I LIKE that! But NO! My brain has already started on a slow boat to China, and I can't seem to get it back to where it belongs - HERE AND NOW.

But hey - I can recite "Big Bird in China" start to finish! That should be useful in the long term, don't you think?

I've had a few requests to share the results of some research I did last fall on children with hearing impairments adopted from Asian countries. I have rather a lot of data to wade through, and I don't want to publish it all on the web before getting a published journal article or at least a conference poster finished. :) To summarize my own work: I did a series of case studies of children adopted from Asian countries who were identified with a hearing loss after arriving in the U.S. By and large, they were doing as well - or better - than the preliminary guidelines published by other researchers in the field describing normally hearing children (let alone children with hearing loss!). There were exceptions, but these children also were later identified with their hearing losses, and there may have been other cognitive issues involved. It's important to remember that children are individuals, and studying a small number of children does not mean it's necessarily the "norm"! That said - here's some of what has actually been done by other researchers in the field (who have had larger sample sizes than I), with some general background included:

Many thousands of children have been adopted internationally by parents living in the United States. Citizens of the United States adopt more children from foreign countries than any other nation in the world. Reports from the United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) indicate that over 200,000 internationally adopted children already live in the United States, and 20,000 more arrive every year (2005). In the year 2004, 22,911 visas were issued to children being adopted from other countries. Most of these children come from China, Russia, and Guatemala. These three countries account for over 16,000 of the visas issued to international adoptees in 2004 alone. The majority of internationally adopted children come from China, and it is expected that this trend will continue. Just over 7,000 of the international adoption visas issued in 2004 were for Chinese children, and 6,683 of those were for Chinese girls. In 2000 and 2001, approximately one in four adoptions in the United States was an international adoption (not including private agency, kinship, or tribal adoptions) (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004).

Transitions for internationally adopted children can be very difficult, particularly if the child is already challenged by a special need of some kind. Many children have been institutionalized for most of their lives, and may suffer from sensory deprivation or neglect. Seventy-five percent of children adopted from China have some kind of developmental delay related to institutionalization (Miller and Hendrie, 2000). Many are nutritionally compromised, and have heights and weights that are below the 10th percentile for their ages. It has been reported that for every 2.86 months spent in an institution, adopted children lose 1 month of height age. Thirty-five percent arrive in the United States with anemia. Miller and Hendrie report that internationally adopted children are at greater risk for presenting certain infectious diseases such as hepatitis B (28% had antibodies or antigen to the disease) and hepatitis C (one child in their sample of 452 had antibody present), syphilis (one child in 452 found to have contracted the disease congenitally), tuberculosis (3.5% had positive skin results; all had clear chest radiographs) and intestinal parasites such as Giardia (9%). Unsuspected medical diagnoses such as hearing loss, orthopedic problems and congenital anomalies were found in 18% of the children assessed. Many of them are not up to date on immunizations. (Barnett, 2005; Saiman, et al., 2001; Miller & Hendrie, 2000; Miller, 2005; Hostetter, 1999). Adopted children present more behavioral problems than non-adopted children, but internationally adopted children show fewer overall behavioral problems than domestic adoptees (Juffer & van IJzendoorn, 2005).

There are scores of children on various adoption agencies' "waiting children lists," which are made available to prospective adoptive parents, most of whom are older or have special needs ranging from minor birthmarks to major or multiple disabilities. Many of these children have medically correctible conditions, such as ventricular septal defects (VSD) of the heart, cleft lip and palate, or club feet. Adoptions for these children are expedited, and often adoption fees are reduced, making the adoption process itself smoother for prospective parents. Many strategies are available to assist adoptive parents in easing the child's transition to a permanent home, as unexpected challenges inevitably arise (Costello, 2005; Nalven, 2005; Dole, 2005).

Generally very little is known about the family and medical histories of children that are adopted internationally. In China, most babies are anonymously abandoned (usually in high-traffic areas where the babies are likely to be found quickly) before being found and brought to social welfare institutes where they are raised. Most abandoned babies in China are girls. While this phenomenon is largely attributed to the one-child policy in China and a cultural preference for boys, first-born girls are rarely abandoned (Johnson, 2004).

Many adoptive parents have questions about what to expect from their adopted children, especially in terms of language acquisition. They wish to know how soon their child will learn English, and what the "normal" rate of language development is for a child who is learning a new language. Speech-language pathologists and audiologists should be familiar with international adoptees' language acquisition, in order to provide accurate recommendations for therapy as appropriate. The percentage of international adoptees that receive speech-language services is high; one study cites 35% (Glennen & Masters, 2002). Another Glennen study examining internationally adopted children from Eastern Europe found that 65% of 28 children evaluated between 12 and 24 months of age did not need speech-language services; 28% were recommended for early intervention, and another 7% were borderline, requiring follow-up testing later on (Glennen, 2005). Adoptive parents should be prepared for the possibility that their child will need special services.

Generally, the birth language of the child (L1) is arrested at the time of adoption, as it is very rare for the adoptive parents to be able to provide a fluent bilingual model for the child (Glennen, et al 2002). So, the second language (L2) is learned as a "second first language" and L1 is lost. Attrition of L1 in international adoptees does not seem to adversely impact learning of the new language (Glennen, Rosinsky-Grunhut & Tracy, 2005). Researchers note that in many cases, children are not proficient in L1 at the time of adoption, because of issues related to institutionalization and auditory deprivation. Delays in language and activities of daily living skills tend to increase with the duration of orphanage confinement (Miller & Hendrie, 2000). When the adopted child is placed into the rich L2 environment, language acquisition is much more supported by the parental model, and often proceeds very quickly.

Results of one study of 452 adopted Chinese children (443 of whom were girls) indicated that 43% had a language delay upon arrival (Miller & Hendrie, 2000). Six of these children were diagnosed with hearing loss (1.3%), and one of the six acquired a cochlear implant. Twelve had problems with chronic otitis media (2.6%). While these may seem like grim statistics, it appears that most international adoptees catch up quickly with their non-adopted peers.

After three months in the United States, most preschool-aged adoptees have vocabularies that rival monolingual non-adopted children's vocabularies at age 24 months. Age at adoption does not appear to be a significant predictor of vocabulary size (Snedecker, Geren & Martin, submitted; Geren, Snedecker & Ax, 2005). Language acquisition for international adoptees seems to follow the monolingual infant model. Early on, lexicons are dominated by nouns, length of utterance is very short, and functional morphemes are almost entirely absent. In later stages, lexicons become more diverse, utterances become longer, and closed-class morphemes come into greater use. Preschoolers tend to reach the ceiling of the MacArthur Child Development Inventory (CDI) measure relatively quickly, making it less useful after the first year home.

Researchers have found that by age 2 1/2, the majority of Chinese international adoptees have no apparent delay in acquisition of expressive English vocabulary (Krakow & Roberts, 2003). Longitudinal case studies of two children portrayed an instance where a child adopted at a younger age showed a faster rate of lexical and phonological development than the child adopted at an older age. However, at two years post-adoption, the child who was later-adopted was within normal limits on all measures but one (her score on the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test). Time spent living in an institutionalized setting and possible cognitive differences were cited as possible reasons for the difference in language abilities in these two children (Pollock, Price & Fulmer, 2003).

This lack of vocabulary delay was confirmed in two more studies, which examined overall language acquisition in international adoptees. Fifty-five preschoolers that had been in their permanent home for more than two years were evaluated, and it was found that approximately 15% of the preschool-aged internationally adopted children scored below average on at least two or more measures in a battery of speech-language tests (Roberts, Krakow, & Pollock, 2003). The same research group performed a later study, and it was found that slightly over 5% scored below average on a battery of standardized language tests (Roberts, et al., 2005). The vast majority scored within or above the average range as compared to non-adopted English-speaking peers, many scoring in the moderately to extremely high range, which should be very encouraging news to adoptive parents. The children who scored below average in 2003 were also the children who had been exposed to English for the least amount of time. Follow-up with the low-scoring children when they reached school age revealed that half of the below-average scorers had made sufficient gains to move them into the average range for their age group (Roberts, Pollock & Krakow, 2005). Twelve percent of the low scorers remained below average, even after an additional 2 years of English language exposure.

Glennen and Masters have provided normative data for language acquisition in children adopted from Eastern Europe (2002). For children adopted at young ages (<12 months), English words and phrases emerged at the same ages as non-adopted monolingual English-speaking peers. Language comprehension and expression abilities were at age level by 30-36 months of age. Children adopted at older ages made rapid gains in English vocabulary acquisition. Generally, a child adopted between the ages of 13-18 months should have 50 words by 24 months of age, a child adopted between the ages of 19-24 months should have 50 words by 28 months of age, and those adopted between 25-30 months should have 50 words by 31 months of age. Internationally adopted children who arrived in the United States between 13-18 months of age showed only a 2-4 month delay compared to their non-adopted English-speaking peers at 37-40 months. Children adopted at older ages showed more substantial delays, particularly in expressive syntax as opposed to vocabulary skills. More research is needed to explore at what ages later-adopted children catch up to their non-adopted English-speaking peers.

A chart provided by Dr. Glennen of Towson University on her website: http://pages.towson.edu/sglennen/index.htm

Some preliminary normative data for language growth in normally hearing internationally adopted children from China have been compiled (Pollock, 2005). It was found that the Chinese adoptees in this study acquired vocabulary at least as quickly as those in the Glennen and Masters study, and that later adoptees actually acquired 50 words several months earlier than those in the Glennen and Masters study in many cases. Different instruments were used, and a different gender distribution was present for these two studies (the Pollock study had over 99% girls), which may account for some of the language differences observed. Overall cognitive differences may have existed between the groups studied, as well.

Several researchers have found that older adoptees made very rapid strides in vocabulary acquisition, learning English faster than younger adoptees, but had farther to go in terms of overall catch-up (Pollock, 2005; Krakow & Roberts, 2003; Krakow, Tao & Roberts, 2005).

Oral language acquisition is facilitated by audition and access to fluent adult models of language. Early identification and early intervention provides greater opportunities to deaf and hard of hearing children to receive the support they need for appropriate language acquisition. In particular, children identified before the age of 6 months have better language outcomes than those identified after 6 months (Yoshinaga-Itano, 2003; Yoshinaga-Itano & Apuzzo, 1998). Internationally adopted children tend to be late-identified, due to a lack of resources to provide audiological evaluation pre-adoption. Newborn hearing screening has only recently been implemented in very few hospitals in China, and most abandoned baby girls have never been screened (Ng, et al., 2004; Nie, et al, 2003; Johnson, 2004; Wong, 2004; Xu & Li, 2003). Miller and Hendrie reported that unexpected diagnoses of hearing loss were found in 6 out of 192 adopted children that were examined for overall health post-adoption (3.1%). It is vital to impress upon adoptive parents the importance of obtaining a hearing screening for their children upon arrival in the United States.

Because of the time involved in preparing and becoming approved for international adoption (12-18 months for China), it is very rare for a child to be adopted that is younger than 6 months of age. Chinese Children Adoption International, an adoption agency handling international adoption of Chinese children, reports that the youngest babies currently coming home from China are about 7 months of age (2005). Until universal newborn hearing screenings are implemented worldwide, including rural areas of third-world nations, internationally adopted children will likely all be late-identified. It will be very interesting to see whether internationally adopted children with hearing loss are any more delayed than their non-adopted peers with hearing loss in the United States. (More updates on this after I present my data in a professional forum!)

References
Barnett, E. D. (2005). Immunizations and infectious disease screening for internationally adopted children. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1287-1309.
Chinese Children Adoption International (2005). Qualifications to adopt from China. Centennial, Colorado: Zhong, J.
Costello, E. (2005). Complementary and alternative therapies: considerations for families after international adoption. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1463-1478.
Dole, K. N. (2005). Education and internationally adopted children: working collaboratively with schools. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1445-1461.
Geren, J., Snedecker, J., & Ax, L. (2005). Starting over: a preliminary study of early lexical and syntactic development in internationally adopted preschoolers. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 44-53.
Glennen, S. (2005). New arrivals: speech and language assessment for internationally adopted infants and toddlers within the first months home. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 10-21.
Glennen, S., & Bright, B.J. (2005). Five years later: language in school-age internationally adopted children. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 86-101.
Glennen, S., & Masters, M. G. (2002). Typical and atypical language development in infants and toddlers adopted from Eastern Europe. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 44, 417-433.
Glennen, S., Rosinsky-Grunhut, A., & Tracy, R. (2005). Linguistic interference between L1 and L2 in internationally adopted children. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 64-75.
Hostetter, M. K. (1999). Infectious diseases in internationally adopted children: findings in children from China, Russia, and Eastern Europe. Advances in Pediatric Infectious Diseases, 14, 147-161.
Johnson, K.A. (2004). Wanting a daughter, needing a son: abandonment, adoption, and orphanage care in China. St. Paul, Minnesota: Yeong & Yeong Book Company.
Juffer, F., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2005). Behavior problems and mental health referrals of international adoptees: a meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, 2501-2515.
Krakow, R. A. & Roberts, J. (2003). Acquisition of English vocabulary by young Chinese adoptees. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 1(3), 169-176.
Krakow, R. A., Tao, S., & Roberts, J. A. (2005). Adoption age effects on English language acquisition: infants and toddlers from China. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 33-43.
Mason, P., & Narad, C. (2005). International adoption: a health and developmental perspective. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 1-9.
Miller, L. C. (2005). Immediate behavioral and developmental considerations for internationally adopted children transitioning to families. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1311-1330.
Miller, L. C., & Hendrie, N. W. (2000). Health of children adopted from China. Pediatrics, 105(6), E76.
Nalven, L. (2005). Strategies for addressing long-term issues after institutionalization. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1421-1444.
Ng, P. K., Hui, Y., Lam, B. C. C., Goh, W. H. S., & Yeung, C. Y. (2004). Feasibility of implementing a universal neonatal hearing screening programme using distortion product otoacoustic emission detection at a university hospital in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Medical Journal, 10, 6-13.
Nie, W. Y., Gong, L. X., Xiang, L. L., Lin, Q., Qi, Y. S., & Nie, Y. J. (2003). Hearing screening of 10,501 newborns. National Medical Journal of China, 83(4) 274-277.
Pollock, K. E. (2005). Early language growth in children adopted from China: preliminary normative data. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 22-32.
Pollock, K. E., & Price, J. R. (2005). Phonological skills of children adopted from China: implications for assessment. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 54-63.
Pollock, K. E., Price, J. R., &Fulmer, K. C. (2003). Speech-language acquisition in children adopted from China: a longitudinal investigation of two children. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 1(3), 184-193.
Roberts, J. A., Krakow, R., & Pollock, K. (2003). Language outcomes for preschool children adopted from China as infants and toddlers. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 1(3), 177-183.
Roberts, J. A., Pollock, K. E., & Krakow, R. (2005). Continued catch-up and language delay in children adopted from China. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26(1), 76-85.
Roberts, J. A., Pollock, K. E., Krakow, R., Price, J., Fulmer, K. C., & Wang, P. P. (2005). Language development in preschool-age children adopted from China. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 48, 93-107.
Saiman, L., Aronson, J., Zhou, J., Gomez-Duarte, C., San Gabriel, P., Alonso, M., Maloney, S., & Schulte, J. (2001). Prevalence of infectious diseases among internationally adopted children. Pediatrics, 108(3), 608-612.
Snedecker, J., Geren, J., & Martin, I. (2005). The acquisition of English by internationally-adopted preschoolers: a natural experiment in language development. Manuscript submitted for publication.
United States Citizen and Immigration Services (2005). Immigrant-orphans adopted by U.S. citizens by gender, age, and region and country of birth: fiscal year 2004 [On-line]. Available: http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/YrBk04Im.htm
United States Department of Health and Human Services (2004). How many children were adopted in 2000 and 2001? Washington, DC: National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.
Weitzman, C., & Albers, L. (2005). Long-term developmental, behavioral, and attachment outcomes after international adoption. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1395-1419.
Wong, B. Y. K. (2004). Universal neonatal hearing screening: to screen or not to screen. Hong Kong Medical Journal, 10(1), 4-5.
Xu, Z. & Li, J. (2005). Performance of two hearing screening protocols in the NICU. B-ENT, 1, 11-15.
Yoshinaga-Itano, C. (2003). Early intervention after universal neonatal hearing screening: impact on outcomes. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 9, 252-266.
Yoshinaga-Itano, C., & Apuzzo, M. L. (1998). Identification of hearing loss after age 18 months is not early enough. American Annals of the Deaf, 143(5), 380-387.

I received this e-mail from the child match department at CCAI today, which puts some of my fears to rest.

Hi Amy~

Thank you so much for the reply! To answer your questions, we have not heard that the timeline will in fact go to an 18-24 month wait. The CCAA does not inform us of timeline predictions for the future. Therefore, we are left to guess based on what happened with the previous month's worth of matches. Once you are approved by our agency, you will receive monthly newsletters updating you with current timeline information. This is the best way to stay informed regarding timeline shifts. Secondarily, we have not heard that the CCAA will not be referring children 24 months or older. We have begun to see fewer children in this age range, however, they have not said we will in fact not receive children over 24 months old. Are these countries able to provide you with the information in writing? We would love to see the information provided to them from the CCAA! Regardless, we understand why your family has requested an older child, if I were in your shoes, I would do the same thing! It is simply a matter of timing and how long you are asked to wait for a child [of that age]. I hope this information is helpful to you! Please let us know if your family has additional questions or concerns for us :)

So, I went to the "Rumor Queen" website today, which is a popular form of self-torture for prospective adoptive parents. You can go and read the various goings-on of the CCAA, attempting to divine the Chinese goverment's next move, and speculate as to how much longer your wait time will be as compared to groups of adoptive parents that were in China some 2-3 years ago. I read a post about a temporary stop on referrals for children from 2-6 years of age. Well, it wasn't completely clear at first, but it appears that this new rule only applies to certain countries that have had discrepancies with China's adoption rules in the past (the ones I've heard of so far have been the Netherlands and Australia - not the U.S.). Yes, a relief for me, but I've been feeling a little annoyed on other fronts.

I had posted to APC, asking what anyone knew about this info, and got quite a few "Well, you should just be happy with whatever you get, dear," kinds of replies. Relatively few of these folks have hoped for children over the age of 2 (in fact, most of them have hoped for as young a baby as possible), so I can understand not being able to relate to my situation, but I was a little annoyed by the nonchalance. I e-mailed CCAI, too, since I trust their take on things a bit more than the APC grapevine.

I take issue with this "take what you can get" viewpoint. Adoption is not the same as childbirth. I'm not saying that it's better or worse; it's just different. There shouldn't be guesswork with adoption. The children are already out of the womb, their issues are known, and in my opinion, should be placed with parents who know what they're getting into after spending $18,000 and two to three years of mental anguish to be able to (politely) ask for a healthy child of a given age and gender. I'm not asking for a little genius or a perfect child. I'm specifying what I am able to deal with, and I think it's fair to have certain parameters and comfort levels that way.

Some people view this as a sort of "adoption consumerism," as if we were buying children that meet specific criteria. I don't think this is the case at all. I've been able to time my children's conception and birth in the past, and the odds in our family are high for girls, it seems (only one boy has been born in our family in four generations - one out of fourteen births!). If I had been surprised by something, I could then readjust my plans. We base decisions of what we want to do later based upon family considerations in the present. I can tell you that my famliy would be happy with adopting an older girl. Not a baby. (Obviously, if we were giving birth - a baby is what we would have. This is adoption, and is different. It SHOULD be different!)

I want a healthy girl born in 2001 or 2002. I think that leaves plenty of room for individual variation! I've heard stories of people who have requested girls as young as possible (AYAP), and have been referred boys aged 3. I don't know whether I can beg the CCAA to pay close attention to our request parameters, but that's the plan! (As in, please, good government folks - take extra time if necessary to refer our daughter... we can't handle a huge surprise at this point!) We need our girls to share a room for a while - possibly into teen years - which would be greatly simplified by adding a girl, rather than a boy, to our mix.

And I've been there, done that when it comes to babies. I'm looking forward to having my kids be a little older. I love the little ones dearly, but I hope the only Chinese babies I'll be caring for are my grandchildren someday!

I had e-mailed CCAI recently, with questions that I essentially already knew the answers to. I just wanted to hear it from them.

I asked about the stability of the China adoption program (China is probably one of the most stable foreign adoption programs available). I was reassured that any and all agency fees would be refunded if anything unforeseen occurred that prevented the adoption from moving forward in China.

I asked about wait times, which CCAI confirmed are lengthening. Current averages from when the dossier arrives in China to referral are about 12-14 months - add in at least seven more months or so for dossier compilation and travel approval, and the total wait time is around 20-24 months from start to finish. That's quite the pregnancy. The wait is probably good when it comes to preparation, and probably bad when it comes to having more time to worry and wonder.

I asked about older child adoption, and feel confident that a) I want an older child and b) we'd probably want to go the traditional method rather than the waiting child method. We'd be waiting for a little girl of the appropriate age to show up in the waiting child program, and hoping that she had a condition our family felt comfortable with handling, and that just feels too uncertain to me. I have a long list of well over 70 families who have adopted children between the ages of 5 and 8, and who have agreed to act as references for CCAI. Funny thing is, I have already been in contact with a few of these families (one is a fellow audiologist and friend), and know that they all have wonderful things to say about CCAI. I'm not worried about agency choice at all.

I asked about the application and the homestudy, and feel comfortable with the requirements on each. Although Dave adopted my first daughter, Sarah, in a stepparent adoption, we have never had to do a homestudy (they're waived for stepparent adoptions). It sounds a bit daunting, but the CCAI representative was very reassuring that way. As someone who apparently has both copies of the "planning gene," I wanted to know whether there was any part of the dossier that could be completed ahead of time. I already assumed 'no' was the answer here, as many of the materials are time-sensitive, and I was confirmed in my assumption.

I also asked about taking Sarah and Genevieve to China, and what CCAI recommends that way. The rep said she thought it sounded like a great idea, especially since Sarah and Gen would be a little older then, and it would perhaps ease the transition for our new adoptee to have other children to relate to right away. It would up the cost a bit to have two additional travelers, but I also think it would be the trip of a lifetime. I somehow doubt that we'd be going to China every year, although I certainly hope that we could return someday with our adopted daughter to revisit her homeland. Certainly, the strong Chinese adoption community here in Colorado is one of the main reasons I want to adopt from China. I expect we'll want to be involved with the Joyous Chinese Cultural Center at CCAI, as well, to keep our daughter in contact with her roots and other children and families that she can relate to.

My 30th birthday is coming up next month. Guess what I want? :)

I recently read a well-written article on older child adoption and attachment disorder. Deborah Hage, MSW, is the director of the MAPS Colorado office, and is an experienced mother of several adopted children and foster children. She is also an expert on attachment disorder.

Generally, very encouraging info here.

http://www.rainbowkids.com/2006/06/process/606olderattachmen.chtml

I received a nice e-mail from Ann Pence the other day; Ann is the artist on the "Gotcha Day" CD that I recently reviewed on my blog. She wanted me to mention that a portion of the profits from the sale of her CD go to Half the Sky Foundation (which I also recently mentioned on this blog).

http://www.halfthesky.org/06News/businesscontributors.htm

Apparently, Ann also corresponds with Tim Chauvin... the current rumor is that Tim is moving to China soon. True, Tim? E-mail me sometime.

Anyway, Ann's a sweet gal, so give her CD a listen at CD Baby, buy it, and enjoy supporting HTS and a great artist.